The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired on which side he voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear whether he was a Federal or a Democrat. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question, when a knowing, self-important old gentleman in a sharp cocked hat made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and, planting himself before van Winkle — with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane; his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul — demanded in an austere tone what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village. “Alas! gentlemen,” cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, “I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject to the King, God bless him!”

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders: “A Tory, a Tory! A spy! A refugee! Hustle him! Away with him!” It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order.^[22]

More dispiriting than the fate of Rip is the account of what happened to the Irish hero Oisin when he returned from a long sojourn with the daughter of the King of the Land of Youth. Oisin had done better than poor Rip; he had kept his eyes open in the adventurous realm. He had descended consciously (awake) into the kingdom of the unconscious (deep sleep) and had incorporated the values of the subliminal experience into his waking personality. A transmutation had been effected. But precisely because of this highly desirable circumstance, the dangers of his return were the greater. Since his entire personality had been brought into accord with the powers and forms of timelessness, all of him stood to be refuted, blasted, by the impact of the forms and powers of time.

Oisin, the son of Finn MacCool, one day was out hunting with his men in the woods of Erin, when he was approached by the daughter of the King of the Land of Youth. Oisin’s men had gone ahead with the day’s kill, leaving their master with his three dogs to shift for himself. And the mysterious being had appeared to him with the beautiful body of a woman, but the head of a pig. She declared that the head was due to a Druidic spell, promising that it would vanish the very minute he would marry her. “Well, if that is the state you are in,” said he, “and if marriage with me will free you from the spell, I’ll not leave the pig’s head on you long.”

Without delay the pig’s head was dispatched and they set out together for Tir na n-Og, the Land of Youth. Oisin dwelt there as a king many happy years. But one day he turned and declared to his supernatural bride:

“I wish I could be in Erin today to see my father and his men.”

“If you go,” said his wife, “and set foot on the land of Erin, you’ll never come back here to me, and you’ll become a blind old man. How long do you think it is since you came here?”

“About three years,” said Oisin.

“It is three hundred years,” said she, “since you came to this kingdom with me. If you must go to Erin, I’ll give you this white steed to carry you; but if you come down from the steed or touch the soil of Erin with your foot, the steed will come back that minute, and you’ll be where he left you, a poor old man.”

“I’ll come back, never fear,” said Oisin. “Have I not good reason to come back? But I must see my father and my son and my friends in Erin once more; I must have even one look at them.”

She prepared the steed for Oisin and said, “This steed will carry you wherever you wish to go.”

Oisin never stopped till the steed touched the soil of Erin; and he went on till he came to Knock Patrick in Munster, where he saw a man herding cows. In the field where the cows were grazing there was a broad flat stone.

“Will you come here,” said Oisin to the herdsman, “and turn over this stone?”

“Indeed, then, I will not,” said the herdsman; “for I could not lift it, nor twenty men more like me.”

The Fenians were the men of Finn MacCool, giants all. Oisin, who was the son of Finn MacCool, had been one of their number. But their day now had long passed, and the inhabitants of the land were no longer the great ones of old. Such legends of archaic giants are common to folk traditions everywhere; see, for instance, the myth recounted above (pp. 167–169) of King Muchukunda. Comparable are the protracted lives of the Hebrew patriarchs: Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, Seth nine hundred and twelve, Enos nine hundred and five, etc., etc.^[23]